Tony Gilroy on Rogue One: “It was just a mess”

The drama du jour is one that’s a bit more stale than yesterday’s but so much more dramatic: Tony Gilroy on Rogue One. The film was in “terrible, terrible trouble,” he said on The Moment With Brian Koppelman podcast. Per The Hollywood Reporter’s writeup:

“If you look at Rogue, all the difficulty with Rogue, all the confusion of it … and all the mess, and in the end when you get in there, it’s actually very, very simple to solve,” Gilroy said of the film. “Because you sort of go, ‘This is a movie where, folks, just look. Everyone is going to die.’ So it’s a movie about sacrifice.”

He saw the opportunity to explore why the film’s characters — played by stars Felicity Jones, Diego Luna and Donnie Yen — would ultimately sacrifice themselves at the end of the film in order to allow the Rebels to gain the plans to the Death Star.

He came in “after the director’s cut,” and “easily won” a screenplay credit, which requires proving that a certain percentage of changes were made.

For old time’s sake (and because it’s been making the rounds on Tumblr a lot lately), here’s a video that compiles much of the trailer/commercial footage that didn’t make the final cut: